Lindsay Pollock

I don’t usually follow the ins and outs of who is in and out at the art magazines, but the news that Bloomberg and The Art Newspaper reporter Lindsay Pollock had been named Art in America’s new Editor in Chief did catch my eye–admittedly, only via this post by András Szántó in Artworld Salon yesterday. I thought Szántó’s directives about where AiA should strive to fit within the art mag landscape were particularly interesting, and worth sharing:

“So what now with Art in America? It clearly needs an energy boost. Its detached, ivory-tower approach, where long reviews dutifully appear long after exhibitions have closed, seems like a quaint anachronism. The magazine has a reputation for pulling its punches. Its cautious academism is out of synch with a culture where opinions are supersized. What new leadership can bring to the magazine above all, I think, is a fruitful demolition of the walls that divide scholarly and aesthetic writing, on the one hand, and thoughtful journalistic appraisals of the “dark side” of art as an institutional and – gasp – commercial system.

No one’s better suited to open up those fertile pathways than Lindsay, who sees the life of art as an all-encompassing totality that spans from the artist studio to the scholarly study to the champagne and canapé-besotted halls of Art Basel.”

So far, from what I can tell AiA’s announcement has been greeted with a giant snore, but I guess it does provide an opportunity for some of us to opine on the relative importance of the (printed) art mag at this particular historical moment. I continue to be surprised at the reverence that people feel for print publications (even, on occasion, myself). Beyond that, I don’t have an opinion – but if you do, go on over to Artworld Salon and tell ‘em what you think.

UPDATE: Charlie Finch weighs in on Pollock’s appointment over at Artnet. Some funny lines delivered by Finch here, but WTF is “andropause” supposed to mean?

From the desk of Mark Staff Brandl “After more than three decades as the editor of Art in America magazine, Elizabeth C. Baker, a powerful voice in the contemporary-art world,” as Randy Kennedy describes her, has resigned.

As the New York Times writes, with very little information coming from the magazine itself:

“The change comes shortly after a shake-up in the magazine’s ownership. Peter M. Brant, a newsprint magnate and art collector, took over Brant Publications, the magazine’s publisher, in January after buying out the 50 percent stake owned by his former wife, Sandra Brant. Mr. Brant appointed Fabien Baron and Glenn O’Brien as joint editorial directors of Art in America and the company’s two other publications, Interview and The Magazine Antiques. Ms. Baker, known as Betsy, took over the magazine in 1974. Under her leadership Art in America grew from a bimonthly publication with a circulation of around 45,000 to a monthly with a circulation of more than 75,000, featuring the writing of many influential critics. Marcia E. Vetrocq, who joined Art in America in 1998 as a senior editor, will take over as editor. Ms. Baker will become editor at large in charge of special projects, which will include book publishing and Web site development.”

Read more about the shakeup and Mark’s history with Art in America at Sharkfourm the Newman to my Seinfeild…. Or is that reversed?

Don’t forget fight night is just a few months away!